1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an improved manual implement, and more particularly to a hand tool comprised of a novel handle and a combination blade, blade support and handle socket with an integral implement fulcrum, which efficiently translates a minimum of physical effort on the part of the user into superior torque and lever forces for effectively loosening, excavating, lifting and relocating a load of material.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
From farms to factories, from mines to the city, applications for shovels, spades and similar hand tools abound, and one of the most frequent and basic uses of such an implement is in a garden.
Gardening is a greatly favored, widely practiced and highly profitable pastime. In urban areas, however, space is at a premium, and garden plots tend to be small. Since it is not feasible to employ machinery, and noise and pollution factors must be considered, various hand tools have always been used to accomplish the necessary gardening chores. The greatest time and effort consuming task of gardening, and possibly the most dreaded, is tilling. The hard physical exertion required just to cultivate the smallest plot is fatiguing, debilitating and can even be injurious, since such exertion places serious and sometimes unacceptable strain on the heart, the spine, the muscles, and other parts of the body. A yound and healthy person finds it to be a backbreaking job, and an elderly or infirm person may have no chance of performing this task at all.
Many implements and accessories have been developed in an attempt to overcome or at least ease the hard physical labor required to wield a shovel, but these fall far short of their goal. The greatest inherent disadvantage in known tools is their inability to translate the efforts of the user into effective action by the implement so that minimal action and force by the user accomplishes the loosening, excavation and relocating operations of blade load in the most efficient manner possible with the least degree of strain and fatigue.
Tools which have specifically addressed this problem include those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 738,057 to O'Connor, U.S. Pat. No. 2,716,538 to Arrowood and U.S. Pat. No. 3,436,111 to England. O'Connor teaches a fulcrum attachment for shovels which allows the shovel handle to act as a lever on the blade to loosen ground, but the device of O'Connor does nothing to alleviate the bending, lifting or physical stress on the user, and only makes loosening the soil easier. Arrowood discloses a soil loosening tool which is also used to remove weeds. Although it employs a lever and fulcrum configuration, it still necessitates bending by the user to upheave the loosened ground, as is shown in the drawings of the patent, and Arrowood makes no provision for excavating and relocating the loose soil. The hand tools of England also incorporate the fulcrum and lever principle for loosening ground, and yet do not provide for excavating and redepositing of the soil except by bending and lifting actions and the concomitant physical strain on the user.